Building a Brick 2012

by mustachio · February 25, 2012

“Building a Brick” is an exhibition illustrating the essential construction worker in the aesthetic realm of architecture.

In an independent 1991 film called “Slacker”, a character offers a passer-by a card from a deck and read the statement “Not building a wall, making a brick”. Ever since then, the oblique strategy has stuck with me. When I was asked to create artwork in my style that relates with architecture, the statement came rushing back. The bricks are essential to the wall, such as the laborer is essential to the constructing of a building. Often times the grandiose outcome of a perfectly designed structure is all that people will concentrate on. For example an onlooker of a project in mid construction will often say “I can’t wait to see it done”. Implying that they are visualizing the end product (the wall). Which is probably exactly what the architect wants you to envision, but without all those small workers the architectural beauty would never exist. I have always been a fan of what is overlooked. Making the ordinary, extraordinary. So here is a nod to the worker. All paintings were painted in 2012.

Historical reflection- To help us get out of the Great Depression, president Roosevelt’s came up with the New Deal which created several public arts programs. The purpose of the programs was to give work to artists and decorate public buildings, usually with a theme of workers in heroic poses, laboring in unison to complete a great public project.